[Tree] Chapter 663: Buying Time (Patreon)

Yun Zhilan put herself between Uldrenneth and the remaining half of the Ninth Wave Sect.

I just have to buy time, she assured herself, putting all her hopes in this unknown person's daughter. But that's easier said than done.

She stared down at Uldrenneth. He truly was a creature of nightmares, a writhing mass of spiked tentacles wreathed in hardened water and darkness. A single working crystal-blue eye set atop an abyssal mouth stared up at her.

A deep chuckle reverberated through the ocean.

"So you were pretending to be weak so your friend could land a hit on me," Uldrenneth mused as he pulled his bleeding tendrils to his back and replaced them with new ones. "I'll admit it was an impressive strike... for a Monarch."

A Monarch? Yun Zhilan hadn't been on the receiving end of the desolation beam, so she hadn't managed to figure out its owner's cultivation realm. I've put all my trust in a Monarch to defeat Uldrenneth?

Dread overcame her. A Monarch couldn't stand up to a Sovereign, no matter the circumstances, as the gap between the realms was insurmountable in every measurable way. Monarchs held Law over their affinity and ruled over their Inner World. Their control over Qi was unmatched by the realms beneath them, and they could dominate enemies with the spiritual pressure of an Inner World.

But ultimately, Monarchs ruled themselves, while Sovereigns ruled over reality. Yun Zhilan's Ninth Wave seal was a good example of this difference. A Monarch could shape their Inner World as they pleased, but a Sovereign could do that to reality itself. A Monarch could place a seal over a Great Trench, but it would only last as long as they fed it Qi. Yun Zhilan's seal was eternal and only wore down over centuries because it was trying to contain another Sovereign.

Yun Zhilan clenched her jaw. Monarch or not, that desolation beam did more damage to Uldrenneth than I can inflict. All I can hope is that their daughter is even more impressive, as unlikely as that is.

"Not going to strike me again?" Uldrenneth taunted, his eye swiveling to the edge of the massive rift in the ocean and back to Yun Zhilan. "Then I suppose it's my turn."

A dozen tentacles, wider than the fallen Jade Emperor's Consortium outpost and covered in spikes long enough to pierce the hulls of the Ninth Wave Sect's largest airships, erupted from Uldrenneth's body toward Yun Zhilan and the island she protected.

Yun Zhilan fanned out both her palms and pushed Lunar Qi into the ocean, rapidly forming massive ice crystals. The tentacles slowed as they punched through them and suffered no damage in the process. The hardened water and shadow Qi, wreathing the tentacles, formed a second skin that was nearly impossible to penetrate, even for Yun Zhilan in her prime.

When Monarchs with the same affinity fought, the domain of the one with greater Law comprehension wouldn't win immediately, but they could starve out their opponent's domain and win through attrition.

When it came to a clash between Sovereigns, the gap in comprehension and cultivation became even more absolute.

In the three centuries since we fought, he's been coating his body with layers of Qi possessed solely by him, not reality. It's like he's wearing my Ninth Wave seal as armor, and I'm somehow supposed to cut through it. Yun Zhilan grimaced as the tentacles shot past her. There's nothing I can do about his tentacles. All I can do is keep his mouth from devouring the island, as I know he wants to.

The fifth wave roared in her Inner World, awaiting its release.

Not yet.

She felt the island tremble above her as Uldrenneth's tentacles latched onto its shorelines, and the nightmarish creature laughed.

"Yun Zhilan, you knew deep down that I could have broken through your seal a century ago. Did it keep you awake, wondering why I was taking my sweet time to escape?" Uldrenneth drew on his tentacles, pulling his immense body from the ocean's depths. "Well, now you know. It was so I could form a defense that even your Ninth Wave couldn't crush. Your friend's desolation beam came as a surprise, but I shudder thinking how much Qi that attack cost him. Decades, maybe centuries? All for nothing!"

Not yet. Yun Zhilan bit her lip, drawing blood. She could hear her island being torn apart overhead and the screams of her people through the ocean, but she had to wait. She only had one shot to buy half a minute at most, and she couldn't waste it.

"My patience will be rewarded, and I'll have you bear witness, Yun Zhilan." Uldrenneth breathed in, and Yun Zhilan felt the ocean tremble under his might. "Heavens bear witness to my Domain of the Lightless Deep!"

A domain that combined water and shadows. While Yun Zhilan wielded might through waves, Uldrenneth held domain over the ocean's darkest depths. The Great Trench answered the domain's call as the entire seabed rose with Uldrenneth, rapidly bringing the entire ocean under his control.

Yun Zhilan had no choice but to answer.

"Fifth wave, release!"

Like lightning before the thunder, the fifth wave announced its presence with a ripple that echoed through the ocean before being drawn back into a singularity and exploding downward into Uldrenneth and the rising seabed. Uldrenneth, for all his new power, had to take cover behind his tentacles under the fifth wave's might, and the seabed's advance stalled under the force.

"Ten... twenty... thirty—" Yun Zhilan blacked out briefly as her Inner World ran dry and the mighty fifth wave ceased. She hurled up a glob of black blood and clutched her pounding head. Her Soul Cosmos felt like it was being eroded by acid, and a clawed finger pressed against the inside of her eye.

"You know, for the fifth wave, that packed more punch than I remember," Uldrenneth mused as he pulled his tentacles back and glared at her. "But I attribute that to my blood infecting your wave, rather than you."

His eye glanced at the rift to check for another desolation beam, and when none came, the monster did the equivalent of a grin.

"It seems this is the end, Yun Zhilan. But we both knew how this was going to play out."

The seabed shuddered and began to rise again, and Uldrenneth continued his ascent to the surface with his abyssal mouth open and ready to devour all in his way.

"No!" she yelled, pushing out her spiritual pressure. "Stay away!"

Uldrenneth slowed, but he did not stop. The ocean was rapidly falling under his domain as he rose with the Lightless Deep.

"This is inevitable," Uldrenneth said, his voice roaring through the ocean.

"Voices!" Yun Zhilan shouted into the ocean like she was crazy, looking around desperately. "Where is your daughter?!"

"Don't bother! Your friend isn't coming to save you—"

Uldrenneth's tentacles suddenly came apart and fell lifelessly to the side. The ends that had latched onto the island's shores followed seconds later, crashing into the ocean like titanic eels.

Uldrenneth seemed as shocked as Yun Zhilan, as the seabed paused its ascent and the monster's eye swiveled to one of its tentacles. Yun Zhilan knew from their past fight that he could regenerate his tentacles quickly, yet the stump remained unchanged. It didn't even bleed, as if that's where the tentacle had always ended.

"So you're Yun Zhilan."

The casual tone cut through the confused silence, and it came from beside Yun Zhilan. She glanced left and found a young woman floating in the water as if she had always been there. As with the void, the ocean failed to recognize the woman's presence, and Yun Zhilan didn't blame it, since even to her senses, the woman was invisible.

She looked barely twenty. Blonde hair fell to her collarbone, and red maple-leaf earrings hung from black chains at her ears. A black sheath patterned with gold stars hung at her hip, the sword inside still undrawn. She wore what could only be described as black cult robes embroidered with a red eye, singed at the edges as if she had walked through lightning not long ago and hadn't bothered to change. A bubble surrounded her, filled with fractures that bled pale light.

But none of that was as strange as the playful smile on her face that didn't suit the situation at all.

She tilted her head. "You don't look well. I assume those black lines on your face are some kind of poison?" She reached up and traced her fingers along the pulsing black lines crawling across Yun Zhilan's face and neck.

"Don't touch it," Yun Zhilan warned. "Or you will get infected too."

"I know, I'm quite well versed in soul poisons, you see," she continued, tracing her fingers, and that's when Yun Zhilan realized the woman's fingers weren't actually touching her. A thin gap separated her skin from the woman. "This one is quite trivial compared to the one my father makes, but it will still be troublesome to treat in the middle of battle. I'll pause its advance into your Soul Cosmos for now—"

Yun Zhilan felt an invisible force permeate her body and shield her Soul Cosmos. The Uldrenneth blood stopped advancing all at once, as if frozen in ice, and no more poured into her Soul Cosmos.

"—there we go. Can you summon a sixth wave for me now?"

Yun Zhilan stared at the woman. "Just who are you?"

"Oh, I'm Stella," the woman said, offering a smile but not a handshake.

"Who are you to intrude on our battle that has been centuries in the making?!" Uldrenneth thundered from below.

Stella glanced down at the living nightmare. "I just kill who my father asks me to and ask questions later."

"Kill?" Uldrenneth laughed. "You took me by surprise, I'll admit that. But my tentacles are nothing compared to the rest of me!" Shadows flared across the monster's skin, shrouding it from sight as the seabed rose.

"What a nuisance." Stella clicked her tongue.

"Can we really kill him?" Yun Zhilan asked. "Because he's right, the tentacles were only covered in a layer of hardened water. His body is shrouded in many layers of water and darkness empowered by his domain—"

"I'll deal with that. You just get that sixth wave prepared, alright?"

Yun Zhilan nodded. "Okay."

"And don't take too long. I have people I've not seen in years waiting on me." She glanced down at the monster and muttered, "Domain of the Aetherial."

That was all. She didn't beg the heavens or even raise her hands. Her irises turned from pink to milky white, and fractal lines appeared across her skin, bleeding pale light. The bubble surrounding her collapsed to a second skin, and then she was gone.

Yun Zhilan completely lost track of her, until she saw Uldrenneth squirm.

"Missed me," the monster taunted as Stella finished swinging her sword. Her expression was the epitome of calm and unfazed as she teleported again, this time above Uldrenneth, and struck. Unfortunately, the monster reacted in time and moved swiftly, considering his size. "Missed again! Now that I know you exist, you can't hit me through the shadows!"

Perhaps she is just buying me time, Yun Zhilan thought, and raised her hand to the sky. "Heavens, bestow upon me the might of the sixth wave!"

"Are you insane, Yun Zhilan?!" Uldrenneth thundered as he shifted in the shadows again to dodge Stella's lazy swing. "My blood will kill you long before you can summon the sixth wave, and our showdown will be over. I still have so much I wish you to bear witness to!"

"And I wish to see none of it." Yun Zhilan pulled in the ocean around her to fuel the sixth wave, twice the size of the last. It roared as it circled her Inner World, gaining momentum and size as it climbed to a truly unmanageable level.

Uldrenneth tried to move closer, but Stella appeared like a ghost and forced him back with another missed swing. He struck at her with a tendril, and it landed square in her chest, yet she didn't so much as flinch or move back an inch.

"Weak," Stella said, almost sounding bored.

"Says the grunt that can't hit me," Uldrenneth snapped, sending more tendrils at her. She simply stood there and took them all while Yun Zhilan kept feeding her wave.

"It's almost ready," she called out to Stella.

"Unleash it whenever," Stella said. "I'll stay here."

"You sure?" Yun Zhilan asked. Stella seemed to have as extraordinary a defense as she did offense, but this was still the sixth wave. It was incomparable to the fifth.

Stella glanced up, her expression going from calm to irritated. "Didn't I tell you not to waste my time? Just fire your wave already."

Yun Zhilan grimaced. This was the sixth wave of her domain. She had unleashed this wave only three times in her life, and the second time was against one of the mainland's Heavenly Kings. It wasn't simply a wave—it was a calamity.

Not that Stella seemed to care.

"Fine." Yun Zhilan frowned and pointed down. "Sixth wave, release."

The ocean above her replenished in an instant, rising back to the levels seen before the first wave—only to be pulled inward into a single mass and projected with such force into Uldrenneth that it sent him crashing down to the seabed. The seabed dented and cracked, as a second Great Trench formed.

Yun Zhilan's breath was ragged, and she barely stayed conscious, but as the sandstorm and chaos below settled a little, she saw Stella standing where she had been, thankfully unharmed.

The same couldn't be said for Uldrenneth.

He'd been sliced into dozens of perfectly cut pieces that didn't bleed a drop of his accursed blood into the ocean. Yun Zhilan stared for a while, wondering if this was some kind of trick or illusion.

"Domain of the Aetherial, cancel," Stella said, and Yun Zhilan felt the ocean fill in hair-thin rifts she hadn't noticed until now. She floated down to Stella's side and glanced at her, not knowing what to say.

"Those random slashes weren't to buy time," Stella explained, noticing Yun Zhilan's confused expression. "They are a new technique I learned by combining the Aether and Sword Dao. Instead of cutting monsters, I simply cut reality, and I let your wave do the rest."

"But still, even with my wave pushing him... how did you cut through so many layers of hardened water and darkness?"

Stella shrugged. "Water and darkness are rather fluid, even when condensed. Great for blocking blunt attacks like a giant wave, terrible for protecting against hair-thin slashes in reality."

"That's true," Yun Zhilan muttered. "But be honest with me—you could have killed him alone, right?"

Stella searched her gaze for a moment and chuckled. "Who knows? All that matters is he is dead now, right—Hey, Morthex! Don't eat Uldrenneth's infant soul! Dad might want it for something. Go make yourself useful and order your monsters to defend the islands, will you?"

Yun Zhilan watched on as a silent bystander while Stella shouted at the skeletal Hydra as if it were a misbehaving pet.

"Honestly, it's as dumb as Father warned me," Stella sighed, shaking her head.

"Um, Stella?" Yun Zhilan said cautiously. "What should I do now?"

Stella turned to face her and shrugged again. "That's for my father to decide. Though I will warn you, if you try to go against him or run, it will be me who's sent to kill you. No hard feelings."

Yun Zhilan glanced between the blonde-haired girl and the chopped-up Uldrenneth lying on the seabed.

"Noted—"

But Stella was already gone, and the foreign force keeping the Uldrenneth blood at bay went with her.

Yun Zhilan doubled over, clutching at her neck as Uldrenneth's blood continued to curse her, even as the nightmare lay cut in pieces below her.

"Yun Zhilan," the voices called out. "Come to the Coralspear Sect. There are some people you need to meet."